Solutions

Knowledge of your own business is one of most important assets you have, and ensuring the efficient transfer of that knowledge will ensure that outsourcing partners have the tools necessary to provide the best services for you, writes Julie Mohr, director of professional services with IHS Support Solutions, a customer service and support consultancy and provider, in a white paper “Ten Things to Consider for Sourcing Success.” Mohr identifies three knowledge types that must be shared in order to maintain a successful relationship with an outsourced service provider. * Corporate knowledge: In addition to understanding your corporate mission, outsourced providers must have a

By Bill Spaide Need a seamless interface from e-commerce through order management to physical fulfillment? Here's how to get it. Online retail sales continue their year-over-year surge. Web consumers' expectations for the range of services and ease of online shopping also are increasing. As a result, Web and fulfillment technology solutions available to direct commerce marketers have undergone several changes during the last few years. What's been happening, why, and how can you take advantage of these noted trends to improve your multichannel sales and customer service efforts? In this article, I'll look at how converged software solutions

By Alan Rimm-Kaufman From this article, you'll learn how to start protecting your Web site and customer data from potential security breaches. A security breach could hit your company without warning. A hacker could bring your firm to its knees with terrifying swiftness. If your Web site is insecure today, hackers could break into it tonight, and tomorrow you could face widespread customer wrath, disastrous publicity and significant legal liability. If your firm hasn't yet taken steps to reduce your Web security risk, now is the time to do so. Following are suggestions to get you started. Yes, You Are a Target

By Terrell Sellix A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual source of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. The shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special

By Alan Rimm-Kaufman From this article, you'll learn how to start protecting your Web site and customer data from potential security breaches. A security breach could hit your company without warning. A hacker could bring your firm to its knees with terrifying swiftness. If your Web site is insecure today, hackers could break into it tonight, and tomorrow you could face widespread customer wrath, disastrous publicity and significant legal liability. If your firm hasn't yet taken steps to reduce your Web security risk, now is the time to do so. Following are suggestions to get you started. Yes, You Are a Target

By Terrell Sellix A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual source of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. The shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special

By Alicia Orr Suman Cataloger/manufacturer United Receptacle supports its distribution sales network by creating and producing ready-to-use catalog layouts. You're flipping through a 500-page catalog for a major player in the janitorial and sanitation (jan/san) supplies market sector when you happen upon a section displaying waste containers. The catalog carries a host of well-known brands — including wastebaskets, can liners and other products made by United Receptacle. What you may not realize is that the other company's catalog that you're viewing actually features page layouts, photos and graphic designs produced not by that catalog, but by manufacturer and distributor United Receptacle. In

You’re flipping through a 500-page catalog for a major player in the janitorial and sanitation (jan/san) supplies market sector when you happen upon a section displaying waste containers. The catalog carries a host of well-known brands — including wastebaskets, can liners and other products made by United Receptacle. What you may not realize is that the other company’s catalog that you’re viewing actually features page layouts, photos and graphic designs produced not by that catalog, but by manufacturer and distributor United Receptacle. In addition to producing its own catalog each year to showcase its full product line, United Receptacle also helps many of

Develop a list of "gifts under $50, gifts under $75 and gifts under $100" to offer to callers who don't know what to order. —Tony Cox, president, Catalog Solutions

By Brad Linden Commercial e-mail practices are under scrutiny by consumers and legislators alike. Indeed, today's marketers are exhausting their creativity while contemplating the newest way to use the e-mail medium. This not only has become a more daunting task, but more importantly, the effort takes away energy that could be better spent developing successful marketing campaigns. However, if it's done right, e-mail marketing can be extremely effective, crushing the ROI ratios of direct mail and telemarketing. It's not enough to merely distribute a regular e-newsletter or promotion anymore. To be truly effective and get the results you want in today's